The Latin R

Exercises

  1. Say “Otter’s daughter bought a better butter.”

    The sound most Americans will make for the t’s in that sentence—if we do not try to be too precise in our pronunciation like the English—is called a alveolar tap (also called single flap?). That is the sound we want for the Latin r where it occurs singly, as in ora.

    bought a → bora.

    setter → sera.

    oughtta → Ora.

    Ora pro nobis.

    otter → Ara.

  2. When the r is doubled, we do a alveolar trill (also called double flap?).

    Arra. Serra. Terra.

    How to:

    1. Make a passage of air: Fffff ….
    2. Tongue in front, not in back like American R; relaxed (at least relax the tip).
    3. Lift tongue slightly into the air passage
    4. After mastering this, do it without the Fffff.

    Another method: pronounce the first half of the word, pause slightly, then the second half: Ar – ra, etc. Do this repeatedly, until your tongue or brain will tire of the pause and slip into the trill or double flap.

Resources

Some of these YouTube videos are for modern languages like Italian and Spanish, but Ecclesial Latin is pronounced like modern Italian, so that’s just fine. Different teachers propose different methods; some work for some commenters, and don’t work for some other commenters. Which of them will work for you?